SpiritSphere Review (PC)

Developed by Eendhoorn Games, SpiritSphere is a fast paced action indie game that draws heavily on the nostalgia of the early Legend of Zelda games. Add in a bit of air hockey in there, and you have a game that can absolutely chew away at your time.

The game itself is quite simple. You pick from a number of unique characters and jump into a match against either the AI or your friends, with the main goal being to score three points against your opponent by knocking the SpiritSphere into their goal. And what starts off as a casual match between players, can easily turn into a hectic battle for supremacy as you struggle to be the first to succeed.

Part of why this game can quickly become so hectic in the first place, is due to it’s simple, yet intuitive, controls. At your disposal you have a simple attack, a charged attack and a dash. And while the simple attack is more or less the same for each character, the charged attack is a little varied.

Lin’s charged attack sees the character swinging their sword in a wide arc in front of them while the hooded Ozo’s charged attack sees the character attack only from the sides. This may not seem like that big of a difference on paper, but proper usage of these characters during full 4-player matches can mean the difference between winning and losing as players take on specialized roles on the court.

Also take into account the number of power-ups and additional items available to the players, including but not limited to bombs, arrows and shields, and you can see why matches can get so frantic.

And now we come to what is undoubtedly this game’s greatest strength, Local Co-Op. While SpiritSphere is very fun to play alone against the AI, single-player doesn’t even hold a candle to the 4-player local multiplayer action. You and up to three of your friends can play at the same time using external controllers, and it’s a lot of fun. It still kind of sucks that there is no online multiplayer though.

Additionally, you can also jump into an alternate Squash mode, which is exactly how it sounds. Players get turns hitting the SpiritSphere, and the one who misses gives a point to the opposing player.

In conclusion, SpiritSphere is a lot of fun for such a simple game, and has reinvigorated my passion for local multiplayer. Definitely take a look at this game for any social gatherings.

SpiritSphere is available now on PC. It was developed and published by Eendhoorn Games.

SpiritSphere Review (PC)

Summary

Fast, frantic and fun, SpiritSphere is one of the best couch co-op games on Steam right now.